The New Haven Museum, where the city’s past is catalogued and shared, has taken to displaying the highlights of the present.

It was there on Wednesday that a logo symbolizing Made in New Haven was unveiled with a number of early adopters taking a bow for signing up to use it on their products before the official launch.

Among those already onboard are the G Cafe, fashions by Neville Wisdom and Vespoli’s racing shells.

Kelly Bigelow Becerra, the artist who developed the marketing tool, took the New Haven lunchtime crowd through an explanation of her creative process.

The symbol incorporates the city’s elm trees, the waterfront and elements of a postmaster’s provisional stamp issued to New Haven in its early years. The logo is seen as a mark of distinction for those businesses that use it.

The made-local branding campaign came out of Mayor Toni Harp’s directive to her economic development team to focus on what makes New Haven “the greatest small city in the world.”

“We thought this would be the perfect time for us to draw upon our industrious past to promote our illustrious present and future,” said Steve Fontana, deputy economic development administrator.

Harp said she expects the mark to go on an extensive list of products made in the city.

“The idea behind the campaign is to showcase New Haven as a hub for people with great ideas,” she said.

“We want New Haven to be known for more than its place in history.”

Harp said she wants people to know that there is support in the city for “its risk-takers and its entrepreneurs.”

Ian Alderman, the artistic director of the company, said it will be a review of the best of its 10 original works produced over the past seven years.

On Wednesday, they had a selection from “Freewheelers,” which puts a feminist spin on the corsets and the chain-driven bicycles, patented by Pierre Lallement, that were produced here.

“We took the idea of the restrictive aspects of the corsets and paired it with the freedom that the bicycle allowed women. Susan B. Anthony said the bicycle was the most effective device for women’s liberation that ever was created. Women were allowed to go off on their own if they had a bike,” Alderman said. “They were called ‘freewheelers’ when they took their corsets off.”

“That progress started here in New Haven and that is what we try to talk about, how our history affects the future,” the director said.

The local partnerships with New Haven’s biggest institution, Yale University, are spurring entrepreneurs as the university makes a point of buying local.

Gerry Remer, director of supply chain and sustainability at Yale, said they have had Whole G Bakery products in the dining halls for some time now, even before the company expanded into restaurants in New Haven and Branford.

Rafi Taherian, associate vice president for Yale hospitality, said other favorites include Palmieri sauce and Lamberti sausage.

“It is wonderful having access to the local folks. We need to do more of these local events,” Taherian said, as he held up a bottle of juice by FreshBev LLC and made his way over to the company’s brand manager, J.D. Altobello, to discuss it.

“This has a lot of potential because it really is just fruit in a bottle,” Taherian said.

“The number one challenge in our city is basically connecting the key stakeholders together,” he said.

Taherian said they can be the leverage that creates “a little breathing room for some of these businesses.”

Those relationships then become “an incubator for ideas, products and services” and New Haven’s next idea becomes larger than just New Haven-centric.